The Singapore Muslim
Community:

As-Salamu Alaykum,
Audhu billah imin ash-shaytan ir-Rajim Bismillah
ir-Rahmani ir-Rahim, My dearest brothers and
sisters, it is a real honor for me to be here
tonight. I asked my friend to invite Shaykh
Hisham to come to the Islamic Center and to meet
the Mufti and my fellow managers of the Islamic
Council. It was a real pleasure to have met
Shaykh Hisham.

I would just like
to share with you a little information about my
own community in Singapore. We are a secular
state, just like America, but it is a kind of
secularism in Singapore that I call
"secularism with a Soul?" It is such
that religion is given a place, it is given a
role to play. The government of Singapore set up
the Islamic Council or Ugamah as a government
body established by Parliament to look after the
interests of Muslims in Singapore. Now this a
rare opportunity and a rare step taken by a
secular government. They didn't set up such a
council for any other religion. It has a
historical reason: the Malays or Muslims in
Singapore are indigenous, therefore they were
given this protection; this special position.

We are very
fortunate indeed with the Council because we've
got the administration of the Muslim Law Act,
established by the Parliament, again to look
after the interests of Muslims, especially in
areas of inheritance and Muslim Law, not criminal
or civil law. So we are have a very nice blend of
- civil and family law practiced in Singapore.
This is the Muslim-managed law.

I think that this
the challenge that we Muslims from all over the
world face today. How do we adapt within any
secular government - within the context of our
own Muslim needs and purposes? We believe that
this is blended in Singapore very well.

Alhamdullilah,
more and more, we find that we are able to bring
about the kind of environment, the kind of
sentiment, the kind of motivation, that are very
Islamic in terms of promoting our Muslim
interests.

At this point, I
would like to give some examples of how our
Muslim community in Singapore have come a long
way in throwing away the kind of petty rivalry,
jealousy, and problems we initially faced and
which in the final analysis dont matter.
But for the first 20 years of our independence,
we wasted a lot of our energies, our valuable
energies, in quarreling amongst ourselves, trying
to show that one is more Islamic than the other
or one is more progressive than the other. But
now we have brought ourselves togetherin
two councilsone is theIslamic
Council and the other is theCouncil
for the Development of the Muslim Community.
The latter's purpose is to bring the community
forward and the former's is to establish
religious affairs.

We got our act
together, weve got programs in place to
push us to greater heights. We put our money
where our mouth is. Every Muslim
workerthere are 150,000 Muslim workers out
of a 500,000 Muslim population out of 3 Million
persons in Singapore. So we are just 15% of the
population, though not an insignificant minority.
Out of that 500,000 Muslims, the 150,000 workers
contribute monthly from their salary $2 or $3
monthly. First we started with just 50 cents a
month. With 50 cents a month we were able to
build new mosques. Singapore was undergoing
redevelopment, industrialization, urbanization.
We needed new mosques for each new satellite
town. We started about 20 years ago with just 50
cents a month, and now we have built something
like 20 new mosques. And now, after the first
mosques were built, the Muslims saw what we could
do when we got our act together; what we could do
if there was unity. From 50 cents, we now
contribute on the average from $2 to $5 for the
building of mosques. On top of the building of
mosques, the Muslims contribute from $2 to $3 for
the upliftment of the community through social,
educational, and economic programs. This is done
by using government machinery where our salary is
deducted at source and then goes to a central
fund. Then those at the Islamic Council
and the Council for the Development of the
Muslim Community are able to disburse funds
for the Muslim community.

Alhamdullilah,
although we are a minority, we are able to show
numbers, though still small, but it shows how if
we get our act together, we can do a lot. To the
point, that even Malaysia and Brunei look up to
us as an example to motivate their own people.
They are quoted as saying: "If the Muslims
of Singapore can do it, there is no reason why
the Malaysians or the Muslims of Brunei cannot do
it." The Muslims of Singapore first started the
Islamic Unity Trust Fund (Amana Trust),
when we launched it, and we expected to raise 10
Million dollars, but within a month we raised $30
Million. Now Brunei also has a unit trust
fundBrunei is much richer than usbut
the idea is to get everyone to contribute towards
establishing a unit trust in order to show that
Islamic Finance is practicaleven in a
secular state.

So these are the
kind of examples which we feel that we are able
to show in small wayswhat Islam is about,
what Muslims can do if they get educated. And we
still have a lot to learn. I believe in America
for example, there are a lot of Muslim
communities emerging. These are the emerging
forces of Islam and a Muslim community: young
professionals who are on the frontier of
urbanization, industrialization, science,
technology and pluralism, which are the reality
of todays world. We cannot just talk in
terms of a homogeneous Muslim community. We live
in a kind of plural society. We have to learn to
live in that kind of environment. It is very
difficult to be a Muslim in an urban, industrial,
and plural society than a homogeneous society
like Saudi Arabia, where Muslims are a majority.
The challenges are far greater, we got to be
intelligent about it, we got to be pragmatic
about it.

Singapore, is just
a small example, we are in the course of
learning. That is why I make the effort when I
travel to America and Europe to keep in touch
with the Muslim communities, as they are also
minorities, in order that I can learn from their
experiences. Because I think it is from the
learning that we will enrich ourselves be able to
cross-fertilize ideas and thus become even richer
and even better prepared to meet the challenges
that are to come in the next century inshaAllah.

So on that note, I
would like to say thank you again for this
opportunity, and I look forward to actually
learning from your experiences here and Im
sure that this is just the beginning of our
relationship. Wa billahi. As-salam alaykum.